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SKETCHES OF NORTH CAROLINA.

CHAPTER XIII.
HUGH M'ADEN AND THE CHURCHES IN DUPLIN, NEW HANOVER, AND CASWELL.

THE first ordained minister that took his abode among the Presbyterian settlements in North Carolina, was the Rev. James Campbell, on the Cape Fear river. The first missionary whose journal, or parts of journal, has been preserved, is Hugh McAden (or as sometimes spelled McCadden), who was also the first missionary that settled in the State.

The first Presbyterian minister that preached in North Carolina of whom we have any knowledge, was William Robinson, famous in the annals of the Virginia churches, of whom the Rev. Samuel Davies says,—"that favored man, Mr. Robinson, whose success, whenever I reflect upon it, astonishes me." This eminent missionary passed through Virginia to North Carolina, and spent a part of the winter of 1742 and 1743, among Presbyterian settlements. It was on his return from Carolina, and while preaching at Cub Creek, in Charlotte county, that the messenger from Hanover county waited upon him and persuaded him to visit that county, in which were no settlements of Presbyterian emigrants, and which of course had not been included either in his original mission, or his intended route homeward.

We are not able to ascertain the places with precision, which he visited, but as the Presbyterian settlements in the county of Duplin and New Hanover were the oldest in the State, and there were none others at that time of much strength, the probability is that Duplin and New Hanover were the places he visited, and the scattered settlements then commenced in the upper part of the State also received some attention. Mr. Davies tells us that the success attending the ministry of this eminent man, so abundant in Virginia, was very small in Carolina. It is probably owing to that fact that the whole history of his mission is circumscribed in the single statement, that he visited the country through much exposure, and many hardships, owing to the unsettled wilderness through which he had to pass.

Supplications were sent from Carolina to the Synod of Philadelphia